yea, this picture just works on soooo many levels. i was looking for a different picture on our photo archive and then bam! there’s osi, making a poot face*. i saw it, laughed out loud and thought, yea, i can work with that.
poot face – noun – the face a child makes while soiling their diapers
i thought maybe this deserved another post. now that a more significant amount of time has passed since my viewing of cloverfield, i’d like to offer some more thoughts.
my biggest beef with cloverfield was due to the ending. actually, the main reason i disliked this movie was a direct result of the way it did not tie up loose ends. i thought about this last night and this is what i came up with. the lack of a decisive ending in this movie creates a crossroads with the viewer. a conflict, if you will. an overwhelming majority of movies have some sort of ending, some way of tying the whole thing together and making the audience feel fuzzy inside. awww, john and nancy end up moving to new york city, they get married, they get a cat, the end. questions are answered, the bad guy dies, the conflict, if any, is resolved. cloverfield does not present you with that luxury and this is where that crossroads is created. whenever someone decides to stray from the uniform storytelling formula, they tend to stand out a bit. look at quentin tarantino movies.
the end of cloverfield is very much up for debate, unless it’s true meaning is hidden somewhere on a message board. i’m going out on a limb here, but i think that while some people appreciate an open-ended movie, others, like me, pay to see some resolution. not to say there are two types of movie watchers or anything like that, but when i watch a movie or read a book, i don’t expect it to end mid-sentence or mid-scene. it came as an unpleasant suprise, that’s all. and i can fully appreciate a movie with an open-ended conclusion. one that makes you think. i simply was unpleasantly surprised that this was one of those movies.
i’m not really familiar with other things abrams has done, such as the tv shows lost and alias and the movie armageddon. i’ve seen a handful of lost episodes, but other than that, i think cloverfield was my first abrams experience. though, doesn’t bruce willis die while saving the world in the end of armageddon? is abrams trying to create a trend or niche? another random thought, i think viewers of the show lost, are up for another “cloverfield-type” ending of that show. my prediction: a mental patient wakes up from a dream, roll the credits!
another thing that killed cloverfield for me was the high expectations i had. granted, a movie’s greatness should not be gauged by one’s predetermined expectations of the film, i’ll admit. but, it remains to be a factor in the way i see movies as a whole. i was mildly excited to see this movie and any generic ending would have probably changed my whole outlook. the monster could have tripped, fallen and drowned in the hudson river and i probably would have thought, “well, that sucked, but at least the bastard’s dead.”
anyway, let me try to sum this up. maybe abrams is trying to develop his own “style.” challenging the viewer to write his or her own endings. the new ending is no ending at all (see: sopranos/david chase). who knows? but everyone is entitled to their taste, their opinion and their preference. what would the world be like if movies all ended the same way? i’m not changing my stance on cloverfield, but because i liked balls of fury and rambo, doesn’t mean i think they’re “good” or that you should or would like them as well. it means that i liked them in their own genre, in their own context, as they relate to me. christ, you should see some of the dvds i own, and enjoy. movies speak differently to different people, cloverfield just wasn’t speaking my language.
yea, that guy dies
i watch a lot of movies. last night, my girlfriend, a few friends and myself went to see the new rambo movie. a couple nights prior to that, i went to see the movie cloverfield. sometime in between, i watched the movie balls of fury. so much for chronological order. here is my highly refined, expert analysis of those three movies.
grades:
allow me to get the ball rolling:
osi: so, i’m squattin over her chest, right?
strahan: heehehe, yea, then what?
i was just reading about former local football coach jim cantafio, when a writer walked by and asked if i had seen the youtube video of him when he coached at wilson high school. i had not. apparently, it had been pulled off of youtube for a while, but, now it’s back baby!
the trials, tribulations and coaching success of jim cantafio happened while i was just a squirt. so in light of recent local stories about him, i decided to brush up on his history.
below is the ‘infamous’ youtube video in question, followed by an ancient video of the great jim mora. the cantafio video is 4 minutes long, but it’s well worth it friends. enjoy.
excellent analysis mr. mora
i watched the movie deja vu the other night. you know, the recently released denzel washington/val kilmer movie where he travels back in time to stop a terrorist attack. yeaaaaa. if believe-ability is a major factor in whether you like a movie or not, do yourself a favor and skip this one. it was produced by jerry bruckheimer and directed by tony scott. two big hollywood names with some big movies under their respective belts. usually, i like tony scott films, check out this list of movies he’s directed. pretty impressive. i thought every aspect of this movie was pretty good, except one. yea, that whole time traveling thing … weak. allow me to try and explain without spoiling, humor me here:
a ferry boat explodes on the water in new orleans. denzel plays an atf agent investigating the explosion. val kilmer plays a portly, quick witted fbi agent in charge of his own investigative team. obviously, he wants denzel on that team. they are experimenting with a new technology that gives them the ability to watch any event, anywhere once it is four days and six hours in the past. this technology uses satellite images and is capable of capturing images from just about any angle. the only snag is, they have to wait until that event is four days and six hours in the past to access this footage. once they have the footage, they can record exactly what they see and view it from any angle at the second they are viewing it, but they cannot rewind and view other angles. think live streaming video, i guess.
as if this wasn’t confusing enough, the actors whiz through explanations of how this works and how this is possible in like 15 seconds. folding time to create a wormhole? say whaaat? that’s all i remember. it seems like the director and producer thought, hell if we zoom through how this shit is supposed to work fast enough the audience will forget and just focus on the rest of the movie. oh, and if you’re having trouble swallowing and believing this part, wait until the end of the movie. they start sending objects and people back in time for purposes i won’t reveal here. this is a good movie, just un-fucking-believable. i like denzel washington, i like val kilmer, i don’t, however, care too much for theories like the einstein-rosen bridge. not in movies for that matter. therefore, on my 100% scale, deja vu will receive a 79%.
deja vu? no thanks, one time should suffice.
i’m not sure what i think about this disturbing new oreo commercial promotion. you be the judge.
“thanks for retiring tiki, have fun sitting at your desk”
i thought it might be time for a little renovation. that old design was starting to burn my retinas.
since my picks last week were killer, i was correct on every spread, i’ll offer my two cents again this week.
allow me to explain, i can’t pick against the giants. just won’t happen here. the last time i picked against the giants, it was in the weekly “pick ‘em pool” in my newsroom. i ended up losing that week by one game because the giants won. oh yea, and there is the fact that i am a new york giants fan. do i think the giants can win? yes and no. brett favre, while i hate him, i respect him. he’s had an incredible year for a 54-year-old. while much of what is being said is “how will eli play in the 3º weather,” the question remains, how will anyone play in the 3º weather?
i think both teams passing games will be significantly hindered. two keys to sunday’s game: can the giants secondary stop the speedy packers passing offense? and how effective will brandon jacobs and the giants’ run game prove to be? ick, i’m starting to sound like a pseudo-pundit from the fox pre-game show or something. i’ll stop now.
now that i think about it, i also want to point out that the football geniuses of the fox pre-game show last week, terry bradshaw, howie long, jimmie johnson and frank caliendo all picked the cowboys to beat the giants. then after the giants “surprising” victory, during the post-game coverage, not one of them brought to light the fact that they all picked against the giants. i found it funny. no, what i really find funny is anyone, analyst, talking head, whoever, who can so profoundly and confidently pick the winner of a playoff football game. anything can happen. i love when a team goes down by 14, 17 or 21 points in the first half and everyone claims that the game is over. it could be, yes, but i’m a firm believer in the fact that there are two halves to a football game. and i love to watch a team come back from a deficit in the second half. there’s really something to be said about rallying the troops and mounting a late-game comeback when the naysayers have picked your chances clean like vultures. oh, and i fully expect terry, howie, jimmy and frank to all pick the packers this week. it just fits.
“all aboard the pain train”
it’s saturday. i’m in the midst of my normal 13 hour death march. i thought i’d throw up some poop and see if it sticks (it certainly will).
-without spreads
this big fella here is terrelle pryor out of jeannette high school. if you haven’t heard of him, he’s the number one college football recruit in the united states. he’s a quarterback and he goes a mere 6′6″225 pounds, and he runs like a cheetah, no a gazelle. maybe a cheezelle. i don’t know, but i caught about a quarter of the action in the piaa class aa state championship game about 2 months ago, which featured a performance of 4 tds and 209 yards rushing by pryor. to see him compete on a high school level was just hilarious. i saw highlights of his runs that night, and just imagine what a quarterback his size and speed looks like weaving in and out of a bunch of high school tacklers. apparently, he’s choosing between michigan, ohio state, penn state, oregon and some others, but is reportedly leaning towards michigan. oh, and he has his own web site, silly.
“You better buckle up. I’ve had a lot to drink… just kidding. That’s my humor!”
today at work, the internet went down. all of my work is done online, so when this happens, i grab a newspaper, grab my reportin’ hat, grab my pipe and put my feet up*. actually, i noticed some internet slowness first, followed by my instant messenger buddy list crashing, followed by my gmail disconnecting, followed by an inability to refresh the homepage of our web site. a few co-workers who are unfortunate enough to sit near me then began to notice this as well. our editorial assistant then stopped by to make an official announcement. yes, we are experiencing some slowness! no internet?!? a riot follows.
i proceeded to pick up a newspaper and started reading. the details get a bit fuzzy here, but something was said about a book someone was reading. the whole situation vaguely reminded me of a scene from a movie. but what movie? it was on the tip of my tongue … caaaable guuuuyyy.
i love that movie. the scene i was reminded of is near the end, right after chip douglas aka jim carrey falls from the top of the tower to the middle of the communications dish, resulting in the cable going out. thousands of people are awaiting the verdict of the “sam sweet?” aka ben stiller murder trial. just as the public is about to find out the verdict, the cable goes out. people scratch their heads, bang the sides of their tvs and generally looked confused and helpless. then they show a character, i believe to be kyle gass, he reaches over, turns on a lamp and opens a book. he gives this enlightened, pleasured smile before cutting to the next scene. that part, like so many others in the movie has always made me laugh and it really reminded me of our brief internet crash. the plan was to find the clip on youtube, but i can never find any of the obscure clips i’m interested in on that site, so screw it. here’s the hilarious basketball scene. enjoy it while you still can.
* lies, i only grabbed the newspaper
